Finally quiting reliance, find out why. Review on Reliance Mobile Operator

Below you will find excerpts from the email I have sent to customer care at reliance. it states the problems I have faced throughout the 2+ years of usage that I have endured.

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Dear Reliance India mobile,

I am sad to say that your service is lousy. Frequent outages in the service are accounted by your call centre to “temporary shutdown for upgrade” How often and without informing the customer do you upgrade your systems? And your call centre people are worse then parrots who follow a script like robots with no empathy for a suffering customer. On several occasions when I’ve asked to speak to a senior, I’ve been categorically told that there isn’t one on the floor. More than thrice, after selecting the option to speak to an officer in English I have had to make to with Hindi speaking personnel at your end.

Being bombarded with sms for things that I do not need and do not want have become routine especially recorded messages from politicians asking for votes, I had the honour of listening to a discourse from our previous prime minister while in the middle of a client presentation. Many such instances of unsolicited calls have invaded my privacy. Your organization thinks nothing of right to privacy with its badgering of multiple phone calls to make collection calls before the due date. I’ve been asked to make payments for bills that I have not seen and have not even been issued by your department, why? Because your organization thinks that I am a thief out to rob you by using your service. Why harass a customer who has been using the service for over 2 years, has been a foremost member on your dhirubhai ambani pioneer scheme, has made all due payments in the past. I had a hard time convincing your staff that I will make the payment once I receive the bill.

Soon after that I was on a vacation in goa with my family and missed making the payment, every day of that trip I had at least two call from your company asking me to go to the nearest web world and make a payment. Every time I patiently explained that I was on a holiday and would definitely make payment on reaching Mumbai, but to no avail, my out going service was barred and I was left stranded even after repeated pleas. Does your department not look at the history of the customer before deciding to take steps, or do you’ll get sadistic pleasure in showing who’s boss?

Then I had the issue of my GTRAN handset’s battery wearing out. When I went to the web world at bandra from where I had purchased it I was told that the repairs or replacement cannot take place there since the service centre was in saki naka, andheri a good 1 hour drive from bandra. When I argued that since I bought the hand set from reliance web world at bandra, I expect to get service from bandra, they said I could take up the matter with the company and should call the help line for that. When I called the help line, they said I should discuss at the web world. In the mean time with one battery almost dead and the other completely dead, I was stranded. I grudgingly went to andheri only to find out that though I should get a replacement since the handset was in warranty, they did not have stock and I should call back in a week. To cut a long story short, I fought it out with the bandra web world and I was handed another battery. This was after 32 days of surviving on one weak battery that ran our in 2 hours without making one phone call. Later, I heard that GTRAN is no longer supported by reliance infocomm, so what happens to spares, what happens to repairs? I was told again, by the web world that it might be better to upgrade to another handset. I had thought that your policy of providing service to handsets bought from you would protect the customer. I also found out that under these schemes the handset is not even insured, though I’m sure you guys are smart enough to put it in fine print, but the customer is not made directly aware of this. When asked why, your personnel coolly told me that no other service provider insures the handsets either, well, but then other services have the option of buying/servicing and replacing handsets from the market for a fraction of the cost that you provide them. So now I have a handset that I have to use till it worked or go figure out myself how to make it work if it stops, of course I have the option to “upgrade” at the cost of a new handset, I wonder what the term upgrade here means if anyways I have to pay the full price.

Finally the last straw, two months ago, I started getting bills with bigger charges then I’d expected, and obviously since it’s would be my word against the world class, multiple upgraded systems that your organization has, I played it smart, I asked for itemized bills so that I could check my usage and figure out if there was excess billing. The itemized bill never came, till date I am waiting. Twice I called in to let your people know and immediately after that I started getting payment calls. Please pay up your bill, when will you pay, what is the cheque number with which you will make the payment, when will you deposit the cheque, which web world?

My simple question “where is my bill?” did not register, I was dully informed by most of the callers that the bill had been dispatched. So where is it? They say that I should have it, which is short of saying “you are lying” I have received at least 50 calls in this period, each wanting to extract information about how much , when and where I will pay the money, nobody seems to be aware that my bill was missing. Each caller has to be explained the history and the verbal exchange that I’ve had with his/her predecessor. They call at times which is convenient to them and they refuse to believe that I might be busy. I have been promised 6 times by a lady caller that an agent will drop the bill at my place and will I make an immediate payment. I explained to her that the reason I have applied for an itemized bill is to verify the charges and therefore when I receive the bill, I will need time to do but I will make a payment within 3 days if I do not find any errors in the bill. Happy with my answer she promised that within 2 days I shall receive the bill. She called me several times after that and we have versions of the above discussion, each time she hung up committing to send the bill. I still have none.

Four days ago, my outgoing service was barred again. All I can say is that I’m sorry that I opted for your service. Through the initial service issues I stuck on because I genuinely believed that reliance infocomm was the messiah of telecommunication and start up hiccups were ok, later because my number was as much part of my business as my office address. However I have reached the limits of my patience. I do not want your service, I do not want to listen again to your unconcerned officers, I do not want to be at the receiving end of your disorganized departments.

I hereby discontinue using your service, just the way you discontinued providing it to me. Its time you give a thought to the fact that it is you who needs customers and not the other way around. On second thoughts, I think you just don’t care.